the third stage - gestures in argument

8/12/2019 The Third Stage - Gestures in Argument

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Te Tird StageGestures in Argumen

Will Penman

Dec 15, 2013


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comes about or three reasons. First, tours are the primary public-acinginteraction that the arm currently has. Te leader o the arm ofen submitgrants, but those are technical, private, written and constrained to the ap-plication ormat o the particular grant. ours at the arm are general, pub-lic, embodied and ree-orm, as well as locationally rooted. Second, toursas a practice generally and Quinns tours specifically are somewhat regular-ized and rehearsed. Tis lends more weight to analysis, because we can takethe eatures that have settled into the tour as more strategic. Finally, toursas epideixis allows me to connect gesture to argument in the same way theepideixis is connected to argument.

Within the tour, I selected this excerpt or three reasons. First, ona research level, this is the part o the tour in which Quinn is least sel-conscious o my video recording. Second, on an argumentative level, this isthe part o the tour with the most explicit claims: controlling water is oneo the really important things we can do; natural ertilizers are something

really important that we eel very strongly about. Tird, I thought it mightbe gesturally interesting because Quinn talks about both concrete topicslike the visible orchard and more abstract topics like crop rotation. It isnaturally bounded on both sides by walking to another part o the arm.

What does the speech channel o Quinns communication reveal?1In what ways is it argumentative? I, ollowing Aristotle, we take rhetoricto be the study o the available means o persuasion in any given situation,then the field o argument can be seen as a subset o rhetoric, as a kind opersuasion that is averse to orce and desirous o good reasons (Booth).Tus, I first locate Quinns speech within the broad gates o rhetoric asepideixis, then explain why its productive to see epideixis (and Quinns

speech) as argumentative.Epideixis as a category o rhetoric has been notoriously murky (Ja-

sinski). Ancient scholars considered epideixis to position the audience asonlookers, similar to a V programs mute audience (Oravec, McKenzie).Te goal was perormative rather than revelatory, exhibiting the speakersskill, rather than changing peoples minds. Tus, when Aristotle says, Inceremonial speeches you will develop your case mainly by arguing thatwhat has been done is, e.g., noble and useul (Rhetoric III.17), he uses ar-gue in a looser sense than to mean inducing people who are or somethingto be against it, and vice versa. Tis looser sense has prevailed or modern

writers, who sense that epideictic communication does work, whether itsargumentative or not. Tus, they define epideictic without reerence toargument, by amily resemblance2(Wittgenstein) rather than as a binary:

1Speech channel is rom the perspective o the speakers senses, and complements thegestural channel. We could also take it rom the perspective o the audience, whereQuinns communication would be received through listening and sight, in the aural andvisual channels.

2One consequence o definition by amily resemblance is that it demands adverbs o


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or the audience, epideixis comes in the combination o understanding,entertainment, and sharing; or the rhetor, in terms o definition, display,and shaping (Condit). In this understanding, Quinns tour is airly epideic-tic. For the arm volunteers, the morning has been spent in apprentice-likeperipheral participation, doing small, tiring tasks like shoveling mulch.

One morning o work doesnt require as much understandingas, say, thedeath o a loved one, but it does open space or the volunteers to hear: justwhat have they just been doing? Similarly, the arm volunteers are amiliarwith tours as a orm o address, which ofen have bad puns and theatricalgestures in short, tours are entertaining, as is Quinns. Te third criteria isthat the audience be sharing, rather than hearing partisanship. Quinns useo nonspecific pronouns and oblique reerences to alternative philosophiesemphasizes commonality and diminishes conrontation (strategies thatCondit finds in her case study as well).

But even i Quinns tour is very epideictic, there remains the ques-tion o epideixis relationship to argument. Objections to its status as argu-

ment stem rom the act that epideixis involves no clear disagreement andno clear response requested. Indeed, this is the case with Quinns tour: thevolunteers in this part o the tour listen politely, ask no questions, make nocomments to her, and have no visible evaluation or action. Lack o dis-agreement in epideixis is expressed by the phrase preaching to the choir,which idiomatically reers to persuasion aimed at people who dont needpersuasion. Yet literally it contrasts with an appropriate kind o preach-ing, which is a typical epideictic setting (Perelman and Olbrechts-yteca,Edwards, Kennedy). So we see scholarly and popular hesitation in charac-terizing epideixis. Cham Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-yteca take up the

line o thinking that epideixis should be considered argumentative on thebasis that epideixis intervenes to make sure that intellectual decisions dontstall or wither on their way to becoming action. Tere is argumentationrom within agreement, too. Te argumentation in epid[e]ictic discoursesets out to increase the intensity o adherence to certain values, whichmight not be contested when considered on their own but may neverthe-less not prevail against other values that might come into conflict withthem (51). In Te Realm of Rhetoric, Perelman goes urther, saying that allpractical philosophy arises rom the epideictic genre because agreementis not enough to merit action (20). Condit does point to situations, such aschildrens speeches in memorial events, where the rhetor is unlikely to have

the kind o long-term action in mind that Perelman talks about. However,in the case o the tour, Quinn is an established community member whorequently encourages people to volunteer, and we can read the implicitgoal o her discourse to encourage potential volunteers to support thearm, including through their time.

degree, sparking unusual ormulations like very epideictic or not a highly epideicticspeech. I have not avoided these.


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In analyzing Quinns speech channel, we see that she covers ourtopics, each structured so as to end by praising one aspect o the topic. Atranscript is provided in Figure 1. First, she describes the orchard and theraised bed that helps control water flow. Quinn concludes this topic bysaying, We want to control water as much as possible. Tats one o thereally important things that we can do here. Tis summary reinorces theidea that her speech has more than an inormational purpose; it is increas-ing adherence o values to controlling water (and erosion, flash flooding,and even concern or the poor with it).

Quinns second topic is the high tunnel. Te high tunnel, she sug-gests, is valuable or promoting growth in plants. Again, she ends the topicby summarizing and extending into laudatory language: helping tomatoes

grow is really great.Quinn then makes a firm case or crop rotation as a way to avoid

the need or artificial ertilizers. Crop rotation is something that promotesgood soil management and soil health, because it doesnt deplete nutri-ents rom the soil. I nutrients are depleted, then petrochemicals have tobe used. Quinn reiterates the arms stance: And so we dont use artificalertilizers up here. Tose expecting a oulminian claim-grounds-warrantwill be disappointed that there is no warrant or not using petrochemicals

Tis is the orchard, which I dont actually count as one oour expansion areas. Um, but I think that it went in thefirst year that we were here. Um, a lot o ruit trees and soorth down there. I dont know a lot about trees, I sort ostay out o the tree business. Um, but again, we have an-other ditch down there, um, that some lovely highschool-

ers dug or us. Um, and then we put a raised bed in ronto that and that keeps it so the water slowly percolatesthrough the orchard, instead o running off down thishill and down into the street. We want to control wateras much as possible. Tats one o the really importantthings that we can do here.

And you guys were already down, um, in what is our sec-ond expansion garden down with the high tunnel. Again,more raised beds, very similar to the first garden, um,the high tunnel being sort o the distinguishing differ-ence. Um, the high tunnel is great, we actually keep thatup all year, even though we dont really need it in the, in

the summer, uh, or warmth or anything like that, but wegrow tomatoes in it. omatoes! Apparently dont like toget their leaves wet. Im like, you are a high maintenanceplant! Oh my gosh. But, its really great that we can - be-cause we can keep the water off the leaves by growing inthat tunnel, and just water at the roots where they reallywant to be watered.

Um, we do one o the other things we do because opermaculture methods, we do crop rotation. So things wegrow in the bottom garden last year, well be growing inthe top garden this year. Because each plant takes differ-ent nutrients rom the soil, or puts different nutrients intothe soil, i theyre nitrogen-fixing, or example. Um, and

so we wanna, we wanna keep that rotation going, becausei you plant the same crop year afer year afer year, youdeplete those nutrients rom, rom the soil. And then youstart having to do things, you know in - in conventionalarming where okay, you only grow corn on this fieldor ten years. Whatever corn is taking out o the soil, itsall gone. Its gone. And so you start dumping in more er-tilizer and petrochemicals because you have to put thosenutrients back in somehow. Whereas i you practice croprotation, i you practice good soil management and soilhealth, you wouldnt have to use that. And so we dont useartificial ertilizers up here.

We do use, um, natural ertilizers. So we have rabbit ma-nure, we have chicken manure, we have the compost. Um,every year I, I have, I have worms. Um, I have wormsin my house, and um, so I bring about five gallons oworm manure up here. Which is a gre a really abulousertilizer. Um, and so we do ertilize, but we use naturalertilizers instead o petrochemicals. So, thats somethingreally important that we eel very strongly about.

Figure 1. ranscript o Quinns tour. Punctuation and paragraphing indicate rough semantic divsion.


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history o images as a mode broadly. Interpretation in the first stage em-phasizes the modes ornamentation and redundancy. Images could be seenas ornamental or redundant to speech in contexts such as early Christianstained glass. Religious art scholar Roger Homan quotes an early Frenchtheologian as saying that the unction o painted walls and windows was

to show to simple olks who do not know the scriptures what they oughtto believe (Homan). Tis ormulation casts stained glass as having justthe same meaning as a small section o speech. On a more modern level,we can see the second stage in J. Anthony Blair, as part o a special editionoArgumentation and Advocacy. For Blair, images have the opportunity toprovide inormational content, but dont measure up to the status o argu-ment very well:

Gericaults Te Raf o the Medusa (1818-19) expresses thedespair and misery o being adrif at sea afer a shipwreck,and shows us the fifeen survivors o the 150 who had clungto the raf twelve days beore when the Medusa oundered;but it gives no reasons or drawing any conclusions, or

example about a need or lieboats, saer vessels, or less risk-taking in trans-oceanic trade, nor is it a justification o thecannibalism that allegedly took place on the raf. (27-8)

Gericaults painting communicates despair and misery, and number o peo-ple, but does not provide a clear inormation and a conclusion. Tis con-cern over the separation o premises and conclusions in images is essential-ly the same as Gross (Gross), and characterizes the second stage o modalinterpretation. Birdsell and Groarke argue rom within the third stage,recently idenitiying five ways that images unction as a part o arguments:as flags, demonstrations, metaphors, symbols and archetypes (Birdsell and

Groarke). Tese unctions have clear associations with more traditionallanguage on argumentation, e.g. flags unction to increase presence, inPerelmans sense.

I suggest that the history o the study o gestures has largely ol-lowed the same trajectory, beginning in the first stage o interpretation,recently moving into the second stage, and now tentatively open to inter-pretation in the third stage, where the mode is seen as having argumenta-tive expressiveness.

In Ancient Greece and early Ancient Rome, gestures were notexplictly discussed, but were mentioned only under delivery. In InstititioOratia, however, Quintilian discusses gesture insoar as it obeys the im-

pulse o the mind, participating in the same communicative act as the themind expresses in words (Institutio OratiaXI.3.65). Gestures role withinthis is to display emotion with firmness and grace. Each part o the bodyhas a role to play: the head, eyes, complexion, eyebrows, nostrils, neck,throat, shoulders, arms, hands, eet, and clothes. Quintilian describes eachgesture, along with its common emotional connotation and urther in-structions or proper implementation. So, or instance, he describe how topoint with the index finger:


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When three fingers are doubled under the thumb, the finger,which Cicero says Crassus used to such effect, is extended. Itis used in denunciation and in indication (whence its nameo index finger), while i it be slightly dropped afer the handhas been raised toward the shoulder, it signifies affirmation,and i pointed as it were downwards toward the ground, it

expresses insistence. It is sometimes also used to indicatenumber. (XI.3.92-3)

Many o these unctions o pointing are still recognizable to us today.3Interms o their role in oratory, then, Quintilian saw gestures as a natural (yettrainable), necessary part o argumentation. Imitating the words them-selves was undignified, I would not allow him to use his hands to imitateattitudes or to illustrate anything he may chance to say (XI.3.89). But ges-ture overall was assigned the same ground that was conveyed in the speechchannel, especially as conveyed in tone o voice.

Research on gesture through the 19th century largely ollows Quin-tilian, emphasizing the natural origin and universal language o gestures

(Bulwer, Austin, see Kendon or a more detailed history o gesture publica-tions). From a rhetorical perspective, Ben McCorkle points to the influenceo technology on conceptions o the canon o delivery, especially ways inwhich these quasi-scientific theories o gesture were an implicit responseto the print revolution (McCorkle 155). For my purposes, it is enoughto emphasize that gesture was conceived o primarily in the first stage omodal interpretation, as a bonus or hidden source o what was already be-ing conveyed orally in vocal delivery.

In todays research, largely driven by the increasing availability ovideo recording devices, gestures have come to be seen as providing inor-

mation that may or may not be reflected orally. Gestures exhibit imagesthat cannot always be expressed in speech, as well as images the speakerthinks are concealed (McNeill 11). Tree authoritative monographs standout in this emerging field o gesture studies (supported through the Inter-national Society or Gesture Studies, the journal GESURE, a book seriespublished by John Benjamins, and the McNeill Gesture Lab at University oChicago): David McNeills Hand and Mind, Susan Goldin-Meadows Hear-ing Gestures, and Adam Kendons Gesture. McNeills results emerge rom aset o laboratory tasks in which participants watch a wordless cartoon, thendescribe it to a riend. (For these researchers, gesture rarely ocuses on theormal, rehearsed situations that Quintilian describes). For the most part,

gestures and speech are coexpressive, but in some cases gestures provide3 For some scholars, the quantity o gestures that Quintilian reers to implies that a wholesystem o gestures developed in between Cicero and Quintilian (Aldrete). But as JonHall points out, We should resist the temptation to view Quintilians discussion o handgestures as part o a complex and artificial system largely alien to the experience o mostRomans. As we have seen, the boundaries between everyday and oratorical gesture werehighly permeable (Hall 152). In other words, what appears complex may simply be ourcultural removal, not a more elaborate system than we ourselves have.


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that medical texts which showed rames o movement made a gestural en-thymeme, No words are needed to make the argument about how a longjump is exectued (290, see Figure 2below).

Tis is a valuable first step toward interpreting gestures in the thirdstage. Newmans approach, however, only applies to sel-reerential ges-

tures, gestures about how gestures work, which seem much less commonthan photographs that depends on their naturalness or acceptance.4Tegeneral theoretical position that content addition unctions argumenta-tively is, to me, orced. In my data, or instance, toward the end o the armtour excerpt, Quinn says, So I bring about 5 gallons o worm manure tothe arm. She gestures during the word bring: her fingers are slightlybent, with her palms acing the center o the gesture space, and her handsabout chest high, ar apart rom each other. It is a gesture that representsholding something. Ten, during the word about, she gestures again:fingers and palms in the same configuration, but hands rotated, so that herright hand is on top and her lef hand is on bottom. Tis gesture also rep-

resents holding something, but it is more specific than her words convey:we see that the 5 gallons is carried in a container that needs to be held with

Figure 2. Long jump (tienne-Jules Marey, 1886), a gestural enthymeme according toNewman. Available on Wikipedia (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weitsprung_mit_Anlau_1886.jpg)

4In general terms. Tis paper makes significant use o sequential screenshots.


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Figure 8. Deictic gesture - pointing to the top garden

Figure 9. Iconic gesture - water spreading out to the roots, rom the perspective o the water

(so things that we grow in the bottom gar-)-den last year, well be growing in the top garden this year

Figure 11. Emblem gesture - thanking the high-schoolers

(that some lovely) high schoolers dug(or us)

(because we can keep the water off the leaves,) and just water at the roots,(where they really want to be watered)

Figure 7. Beat gesture - emphasizing the word actually

(the high tunnel is great) we actually keep(that up all year)

Figure 10.Metaphoric gesture - using the conceptual metaphor , where arming options are being presented

(and then you start having to do) things, you know in(in conventional arming where okay, you only grow corn on this field or ten years)


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ound that might be incomprehensible to cultural outsiders (McNeill 151).Both iconic and metaphor gestures reer to concepts, and are only differen-tiable in degree o abstraction, such that in Woles study, these categorieswere collapsed (Wole). Finally, emblems are culturally specific gesturesthat can ofen substitute or speech, such as waving to mean hello, or us-

ing the middle finger. Tese can vary so much by populating that mappingstudies have been undertaken to see what gestures take on what meaningswhere, e.g. in Europe (Morris, Collett, Marsh and OShaughnessy).

McNeill recommends coding each gesture or its palm/fingerorientation, location in the gesture space, motion, direction, and meaning,as well as what word(s) it was on. (Beats dont require that a meaning becoded; iconics and metaphorics demand an additional category o per-spective.) Te stroke o the gesture is the important part to code; op-tional preparation, holding, and retraction stages are also possible to code.I have used a ree linguistics sofware program called ELAN to code. Teprocess o finding ELAN, importing video, and understanding enough o

the system to begin working took about one ull day. Coding this 3-minutesection took about two ull days, even with minimal coding toward theend. However, ELAN gives enormous flexibility, and was the only pro-

Figure 12. ELAN workspace or gesture coding. Video (upper lef), volume and playback rate control (upper right), coding categories(bottom).


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more specifically, asking that we reassess our expectations or the locationo argument, and investigate situations in which gesture might be used insubtle, yet-unnoticed ways. It also encourages urther questions regard-ing argumentation across cultures, in which subtle gestures that might beeasily understood rom one context might be oreign and ignored (or taken

offense to) in another context.


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W C

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the third stage - gestures in argument

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